Poll Technica: What’s your preferred iOS mapping app?

There's a hot debate over iOS mapping apps, so come vote in our poll.

This week's release of Google Maps for iPhone sparked a new debate over what constitutes a good mapping app—not just on iOS, but on any platform. But for us iOS users, it has been a particularly interesting topic ever since September's release of iOS 6. That's when Apple ditched its old Maps app completely for a newly made-over version with lots of shiny bells and whistles—and no Google involvement.

But iOS 6 Maps has struggled over the last three months. User criticism was enough for Apple CEO Tim Cook to issue a public apology for what amounted to a poor customer experience, and a high-profile warning from Australian police to avoid using the app didn't help.

There are a handful of Maps alternatives on the App Store and the Web—some more functional than others. But now that Google's new and improved offering is available, we're left wondering: what is everyone using?

Do you have a preferred mapping app on the iPhone? For now, we're including Apple, Google, and all the ones Cook named as alternatives, but if you have another favorite that works even better for you, let us know in the comments (and tell us why you like it so much).

I downloaded it yesterday morning, and I even had an opportunity to use it -- to walk to a restaurant for my work holiday gathering (didn't even qualify as a party). But given that it was only about a half mile away and involved no turns, that's hardly a good test.

I'll try it when I need to go somewhere I'm unfamiliar with, but I have no idea when that will be.

Really, more than a day is needed for any useful poll data. Asking after Christmas or (even better) New Years would give people time to use Google Maps app or others to go places they're unfamiliar with and see if it's worth a damn.

For now I marked Waze, because it's been mostly reliable for me, it gives good traffic data, voice navigation (iPhone4), and one significant difference from Apple Maps -- when navigating it doesn't turn off the bloody display. The current Apple Maps app still does that, and it makes absolutely no sense to me.

I noticed that if apple turns off the dislpay, it still lights up when giving instructions and for alerts, even on the lock screen. Though I agree, especially when charging, I'd like to prevent it going off at all and it should have that option, the fact the screen sleeps is something that's growing on me, and I think I almost prefer now, especially when I don't have it charging...

Voted "Other" since none of the GPS/map apps I use are be-all, end-all.

MotionX I use for recording routes.

Accuterra for car camping trips (real good at displaying all the maze of Forest Service roads correctly/accurately).

Google desktop, have had some location and routing errors, but like Street View, even though generally not spot-on, with zooming/scrolling to attempt to read address numbers, can generally get an idea of what the building looks like I'm going to and or buildings near-by.

Which brings me to the new Google iOS app. Small test yesterday. First destination, Google found the address correctly (NE corner), but when routing, tried to send me to the NW corner. Apple located the address as being on the SE corner and routed to that.

Last address for the day, Google tried to route me down a one-way street in the wrong direction. Apple got that test correctly.

ADD: Bing maps for estimating drive times for long, cross-country-like drives (more accurate re: drive times on open highway than Google).

Waze is the best commuting app because of the crowd sourced traffic info and routing. If I'm going somewhere new, I like to have something to verify against (apple/google maps) because Waze has dropped me off in the middle of no where before and the maps can be a bit sketchy in rural areas.

I like much of Apple Maps, but there seems to be no traffic data at all for my area. When I toggle it on, nothing ever happens. That's probably my most used feature as there are several routes to most places here, and the most important thing is just avoiding the accidents/jams.

I use the integrated Apple Maps. It's accurate in my area and I have had no need to go back to Google. Also, I find the vector based tiles to be glorious and beautiful, not to mention speedy on resize.

I voted Google Maps. Though really, I use Waze way more, but I'm not really using it for mapping, I'm using it for local traffic updates. I don't use it to actually navigate, other than to avoid problem areas. When I'm just wanting to look up an address or business I use Google Maps.

That was the case on my iPhonje 4, as well as iOS 5. I would reference google merely to confirm the route was correct (in the early days especuially, Waze could be far less than the best route), and for lookupsby business name (if I had the address already, I'd just enter it in Waze).

Though google has some "meh" traffic data, Waze is awesome because it provides a much more real-time assessment, and also auto-reroutes the trip. it also includes the WHY associated with traffic in many cases (wreck, congestion, construction) and shows cops and other road hazards.

Apple maps apparently pulls a lot of that data, as it also not only has traffic, but shows many hazards and information about the traffic, and seems to report it much more quickly, long before it will appear congested in google, and google doesn;t USE it;s traffic data in any way to help you, just green, yellow, or red lines and you have to guess what to do about it.

Yes, google includes transit lines for a lot of cities, and if I was on foot, clearly id use that, but for driving, I'll use apple maps for quick runs on known roads or when I'm in no rush because I can simply have Siri send me there, and waze when traffic avoidance is improtant to me or on very-long road trips.

I like much of Apple Maps, but there seems to be no traffic data at all for my area. When I toggle it on, nothing ever happens. That's probably my most used feature as there are several routes to most places here, and the most important thing is just avoiding the accidents/jams.

It's crwod sourced, so probably you don't have enough people actively using it while they're actually in traffic for apple to get that data. I do already find that Apple maps provides more data than google maps does, and quicker too (googles data is usualyl delayed at least 15 minutes). Apple also estimates time based on traffic exactly, google seems to just estimate, and does not offer alt routed based on what it sees.

Waze was like that originally here, rarely any traffic data, but now, it's damn accurate becausae it;s heavily used. Apple leverages Waze's data for traffic as well as TomTom in the USA in addition to their own data collection directly from devices. It's incomplete, but getting better, and is better than google on traffic data hands down.

I use Apple Maps, they are pretty and seem fairly accurate for the place I live.

I tried Nokia's Here maps but the app was weird and the mapping was extremely slow, I did like that you could download maps for offline use since here in Brazil there are plenty of places with little if any data coverage. However that feature was totally crippled, e.g. I could not specific that I wanted a full map of all of Brazil or my top 5 cities stored in high detail. You can only select either a big map in low detail or an insignificant sized map in high detail which is completely useless.

I have not tried Google's new Map app but since that doesn't allow saving maps for offline use either it is also useless to me (at least Google Maps has never allowed that on my Android phone, I don't expect that to change to iOS).

Apple Maps is quite pretty and despite getting a lot of grief of it, it is not a bad solution. I am sure Apple will be able to make it an excellent solution over time. Maybe in a time frame where wireless internet becomes plentiful and affordable where I live which would be great.

Copilot for cross country stuff where there's no signal. (A nice feature is that you can download regions, rather than the entire Western Hemisphere at once, which is nice if you know you're not going to be in Florida during your trip from WA to CA.)

Google's Maps app for transit. (Used the hell out of it yesterday. I dislike the lack of integration with my contact list (or if it does integrate, it didn't ask me to.))

Figures. An Apple product could cause someone to drive off a cliff and if they survive they's swear it was the satellites in orbit that was the problem. *rolls eyes*

Users like this are the reason we should be able to tag people on here.

Consistently awful commenter with nothing to add to the discussion. I know everyone just says "block him" but I feel like if everyone blocks people like this and doesn't challenge what they say, then other users reading through will think their points are legit.

Anyway, take your weird, blind, irrational hatred of Apple back to Engadget or where ever.

Perhaps most people aren't restaurant fiends, but I find Yelp reviews to be a whole lot more accurate than Zagat's. Apple Maps' Yelp integration is a huge bonus for me.

When Yelp first started it seemed great, but when they finally had to start earning money, they have become a very sad company - they remove reviews, they have occasionally blacklisted places, and I just rarely find that I agree with much of how the restaurants are ultimately ranked. Very much a Trendiness > Good Food issue.

Urbanspoon however seems great - I find I really agree with their ratings and so that's what I use at the moment.

I've been using Apple Maps since it came out and, for the most part, it works well for me. When travelling out of data range (which can happen a lot in rural Canada) I've been using CoPilot GPS which has preloaded maps. I'll give Google Maps a spin for a while and see how it works, too - I like that I can sign in and access my saved places from desktop maps.google.com. I do wish that Apple would open up iOS and allow users to select their own default maps (and mail, calendar, etc.) app, but that's another story.

So far, in comparison with my friend's Android phone, Apple Maps has been more accurate than Google Maps. I'm sure that's not the case everywhere, but now that I have an iPhone5, I don't anticipate needing any other mapping solution (had been using Mapquest for turn-by-turn on my 3GS). I have found the new Google Maps to be a bit sluggish on the 3GS.

Your friend must be using his Android phone wrong. Everyone knows from reading the news articles that Apple Maps has problems and Google Maps is better.

Apple Maps are way off for my remote community in the middle of nowhere Alaska. I've submitted road name changes etc. and they have never been updated. Apple even has roads names over areas where no roads exist!

Google Maps has terrible picture quality for the area, but at least the road names are all correct.

So far, in comparison with my friend's Android phone, Apple Maps has been more accurate than Google Maps. I'm sure that's not the case everywhere, but now that I have an iPhone5, I don't anticipate needing any other mapping solution (had been using Mapquest for turn-by-turn on my 3GS). I have found the new Google Maps to be a bit sluggish on the 3GS.

Your friend must be using his Android phone wrong. Everyone knows from reading the news articles that Apple Maps has problems and Google Maps is better.

If you're being sarcastic, which I'm assuming you are, you should make it a little more obvious or people are going to downvote the shit out of you.

Telenav GPS Plus. I never see anyone discussing it, perhaps because it's somewhat driving-oriented, but I've found it to be the least annoying to use every day as I do. It's seriously worth a try.

Compared with Garmin, which requires too many damn taps to start navigation, and Magellan, which is pricey and somewhat ugly, I've always had prompt and useful directions from Telenav. I keep coming back to it no matter what else I try.

Apple Maps are way off for my remote community in the middle of nowhere Alaska. I've submitted road name changes etc. and they have never been updated. Apple even has roads names over areas where no roads exist!

Google Maps has terrible picture quality for the area, but at least the road names are all correct.

Don't submit corrections to Apple Maps! If you do that they might eventually get better than Google Maps, and then people would start using them, which would be bad.

For turn by turn I've been using Garmin for years and have no complaints (although I don't use it often).

In principle I trust Apple's approach to privacy more than I do Google's (and location based ads tend to creep me out). However, currently Apple's search functions are lacking (although that seems to be improving). So if I need to search for something I'll probably use Google for now and check back with Apple in a few months.

Wow, someone drove off a cliff following it? Can you give us the article link? I'd like to show that to my friend.

Does your friend run the Darwin awards by any chance?

No he's one of those people who says he hasn't had any problems with Apple Maps.

I find it hard to believe... but I guess there are ones out there... Just looking at the two side by side in very populated cities - the total lack of road detail, and street names unless completely zoomed in... and just the overall clutter and bad color choices make Google Maps a winner in my book.

I don't feel super comfortable voting in this poll since I haven't tried or used all of the options available. I'm still a Google Maps user since I decided to wait for reviews before "upgrade" to iOS 6. Happy I did.

Anyhow, for normal use, Google maps is great. If I head out into the bush, where I can expect poor/no connectivity, I use Motion-X GPS, which can pre-load map data for an area before hand and for turn-navigation I use Metroview Australia.All these apps work great for me, hence I haven't gone looking for alternatives.

... Apple leverages Waze's data for traffic as well as TomTom in the USA in addition to their own data collection directly from devices. ...

Wait... what? Can you offer corroborative links for Apple's use of Waze traffic data? And are they using Waze's user submitted map correction data as well?

Real-time-crowd-sourced traffic updates really are one of the most useful features in Waze for me... so if you're serious, then I might well have to take a closer look at Apple's Maps app, after all. (I've only opened the new Apple Maps app about three times, to be honest... and I'll be opening the new Google Maps app for the first time this evening, when I drive home.)

...I have not tried Google's new Map app but since that doesn't allow saving maps for offline use either it is also useless to me (at least Google Maps has never allowed that on my Android phone, I don't expect that to change to iOS). ....

Maybe that's an international thing? because in the US I've been able to offline maps for a while, used it a few months ago in Montreal for the weekend because I don't have international roaming and it didn't seem worthwile to pick up a sim for just a weekend.. also use it for the rural/mountainous places in NY/NE when hitting the slopes as coverage is spotty up in them there hills..

also pretty sure I read they will be adding offline maps on iOS in a future upgrade..

Personally, neither New Apple Maps or New Google Maps matches Old Apple Maps with Google backend.

For me, a favorite use case when traveling was to enter key destinations (Hotels, conference centers, attractions, restaurants) into my Address Book before I left. From there, I could easily tap the contact, tap Directions To Here, and tap Public Transportation (since I don't always rent a car, and many urban areas are not car-oriented.)

This is still possible, but now I have to detour through the transit-less New Apple Maps and (each time!) select the transit-enabled but Address Book-stupid Google Maps.

This could be much better without too much work. Apple save me a step by letting me designate a default routing app for public transportation. Google could eliminate several steps by just reading from the device's Address Book directly.

No he's one of those people who says he hasn't had any problems with Apple Maps.

I find it hard to believe... but I guess there are ones out there... Just looking at the two side by side in very populated cities - the total lack of road detail, and street names unless completely zoomed in... and just the overall clutter and bad color choices make Google Maps a winner in my book.

Yeah so far Louisville KY and Cincinnati OH are no problem at all w/the iOS6 Apple Maps. Can't speak for anywhere else as that is where I have driven, but when I missed an exit and had to cut across backroads between I64 and I71, Siri pulled a route up for me that was faster than doubling back the interstate. Haven't tried the new Google app yet, maybe this weekend

How can you people live with Apple Maps!? You must not live in an area where traffic reports matter. In LA Apple maps is essentially useless because it only provides the bare minimum of traffic information while Google Maps provides much better "resolution" and extremely accurate travel times in traffic that make route selection possible.

I'm just glad Google finally launched maps on the iPhone so my girlfriend can stop calling me every day to look up which way she should go home.

I never use Google Maps as the scenery is awful and it doesn't even know there's a highway in my backyard!

(A retort to those stating the same thing but about the apple maps...the truth is that google has been invested in maps for far longer and have the upper hand, but ultimately any mapping enterprise is an enormous effort requiring millions of man hours. It's frankly no surprise that Apple has a ways to go. Love 3D though)

It's never once led me into the wilderness, and its directions are usually spot-on.

Also, unlike Google Maps, it can navigate to my address. Google Maps knows the street is there, but for whatever reason, can't navigate to it. The closest navigable street is two blocks away.

Apple Maps doesn't know my street exists at all.

I think local knowledge is everything in mapping, especially when it comes to timeliness. MetroView seems to get updates very quickly. If a new speed limit goes in, it will be there on the next update. When my street was extended, it was there in the app within a week of it happening. That's something that even other dedicated mapping companies like TomTom struggle with.